Greece has signed a €60 million contract to build three grade-separated interchanges at Skaramangas, on the western edge of Athens, in a bid to unclog one of the country’s busiest freight corridors and pull heavy trucks off residential streets.
The deal was signed at a ceremony attended by Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. The work will be carried out by a joint venture of Metka, a subsidiary of the industrial and energy group Metlen, and Domiki Kritis. The project is scheduled for completion within 36 months.
Signing ceremony for the Skaramangas triple junction contract, held at the Diomedes Botanical Garden. Monday, July 13, 2026 (TATIANA BOLARI / EUROKINISSI)
Evangelos Mytilineos, executive chairman of Metlen, told the ceremony the project would deliver benefits well beyond its cost. He framed it as more than a routine contract signing, calling it the start of work that would improve one of the country’s most important transport and freight hubs. Large infrastructure, he argued, should be seen as productive investment rather than simply public works, describing it as the foundation on which a country’s competitiveness is built.
What the project involves
The scheme centers on the Skaramangas area, where the Western Aigaleo Ring Road meets the old Athens-Corinth national highway. Its main components are:
- Completion of the final 1.515-kilometer stretch of the Western Aigaleo Ring Road, where only earthworks have so far been done, connecting it to the Athens-Corinth highway.
- Construction of a new Skaramangas half-interchange to link the ring road with that highway.
- An upgrade of the existing Schisto interchange, reusing the current two-lane bridge for Schisto-Corinth traffic and adding a second overpass for traffic heading from Athens toward Schisto.
- A new interchange at the shipyards, on Schisto Avenue near the Skaramangas shipyards, replacing a signaled at-grade junction.
The contract also includes a redesign of stretches of the Athens-Corinth highway and Schisto Avenue between the junctions, plus a new storm-water drainage network for the area. Three optional add-ons cover extra branches at the Schisto and shipyards interchanges, the demolition and rebuilding of the existing Schisto bridge, and a half-interchange at Aspropyrgos.
Why it matters
The corridor is heavily trafficked. About 100,000 vehicles pass through each day, according to Infrastructure and Transport Minister Christos Dimas, 20,000 of them heavy trucks. Average speeds are currently 28 kilometers per hour; Dimas said the interchanges should raise them to about 47.
Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Christos Dimas at the signing ceremony for the Skaramangas triple junction contract, held at the Diomedes Botanical Garden. Monday, July 13, 2026 (TATIANA BOLARI / EUROKINISSI)
The stated aim is to keep trucks out of residential areas by routing them along the ring road, the national highway and Schisto Avenue. Dimas said new bridges and the removal of traffic lights would ease congestion in western Attica without solving it outright. The tender was launched in November 2025, eight months before the signing.
Mitsotakis framed the stakes more broadly, linking the project to the future of Piraeus, Greece’s largest port, and to government plans to develop nearby Aspropyrgos as a logistics center. He asked residents to bear with the construction and placed the work alongside other projects the government is pursuing, including the E65 motorway, the BOAK highway on Crete, and the westward extension of the Metro’s Line 4.
He also pointed to a planned road link between Elefsina and Oinofyta, which he called the true large-scale bypass of Attica, intended to relieve the chronically congested Kifisos artery.
Source: OT.gr
